


All I Want for Christmas (Is You)

by TheBraillebarian



Series: A Very Metal Christmas [3]
Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, M/M, Mind Manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:20:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28103067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBraillebarian/pseuds/TheBraillebarian
Summary: Mordhaus has fallen. In the depths of the ocean, a high priest consults with one of his gods.
Relationships: Charles Foster Offdensen/Pickles the Drummer
Series: A Very Metal Christmas [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055693
Comments: 10
Kudos: 13





	All I Want for Christmas (Is You)

**Author's Note:**

> December 15 for Dethmas: crossover with your favorite song! Mine happens to be Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas (Is You)" but specifically because of one amazing crossdressing man in a chat roulette video. :D But why do something funny with that concept when I can just punch myself right in the heart?
> 
> Special thanks to [ThisisVenereVeritas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisisVenereVeritas/pseuds/ThisisVenereVeritas) and [InsomniacCoffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsomniacCoffee/pseuds/InsomniacCoffee) for beta reading this!

Christmas at the end of the world is a dismal affair. The Church of the Black Klok is not well suited to surface traditions and even less prepared after the fall of Mordhaus. A few strings of lights festoon the cavern tunnels, stuttering in the damp, accompanied by wilted sprigs of pine and holly. In one of the cathedrals someone has set up a tiny glass tree that looks as though it's come from the 1960s. Its varicolored lights are dim against the omnipresent reds of the room. Charles doesn't see the figure slumped on the floor by one pew until the scuff of his shoe moves the man.

“Pickles?”

“Hey, chief.” His voice is tired.

Someone has found him a truly hideous holiday sweater to wear, more likely a result of circumstance and what could be salvaged in their flight than intention. Flecks of blood are still caught in his dreadlocks, dark grit mixed with the fiery red. He fists his hands in the voluminous sleeves of his robes and swallows the lump in his throat.

They had been meeting in his office when the attack came and the first sign of danger was the serrated blade arcing across Pickles' throat. Whatever the man had been saying became a red spray from his mouth, a sick wet choking that will haunt Charles' nightmares, but not more than what came next. Charles had leapt to his feet, hand reaching for a sword, when the veins in Pickles' rolled back eyes began to creep upward, filling the white with crimson. He had realized with a cold dread that the assassin was struggling to free their hand from the hair slithering up an arm. The hideous ruin of Pickles' throat knit itself together, rudely shoving the knife out and to the floor with a clatter. Skin on his forehead ripped open, blood drooling down his face to catch in the corners of a suddenly manic grin. An eye opened on his forehead, a kaleidoscope of nauseating color that dug hooks into Charles' mind.

“Oh shit, dood,” Pickles whispered through blood smeared lips. “Ya fucked up real bad.”

The assassin hadn't moved, only screamed. When Pickles regained his feet to turn around, the scream became the terrified howling of an animal being eaten alive. Charles had followed behind Pickles' gestured command, pausing a moment to watch blood ooze from under the counterfeit hood of the still standing killer. From there everything became a blur of running, his blade cutting down foes, heart pounding as he followed in the wake of chaos itself. He remembered fire and blood and the screams of invaders as an angry god descended upon them. All for naught as they were driven from their home with whatever they could carry and the supplies Charles had prepared for such an event.

Now he stands in the presence of divinity and it feels wrong. He can't join decades of memory with the things he has seen in the past day. Charles sinks to his knees just as Pickles is turning toward him. Head bowed, he doesn't see the man's face crumple.

“Charlie...” his voice is small and lost. “Not you, too.”

Since their arrival in the underwater caverns the boys have been treated with an uncommon reverence. He wasn't witness to their otherworldly performances but he could feel it radiating off them. Only Skwisgaar seemed to feel it his due when monks would bow or prostrate themselves before him. Toki had gone still and silent, eyes glassy. Nathan had roared at the fourth person to bow at his feet, demanding they all “stop that cult shit”. Even Murderface had seemed unnerved by the obeisance. Pickles had tried to be his affable, cheery self, waving a dismissive hand or insisting it wasn't necessary, but Charles had seen the brittleness of his smile.

The man is curled in on himself, head pressed against his knees, shoulders shaking, and Charles knows in his marrow that he's made a mistake. He scrambles toward the hunched figure, ignoring the mortal instinct to flee from a predator which itches at his awareness. His arms wrap around the man he loves and Pickles claws into the embrace with a choking gasp.

“I don't want none of this, Charlie!” he cries. “I ain't no god, no fuckin' Christ! I'm just some jackoff who plays the drums!”

Fingers catch in his amulet of office and tangle in the chain. He can feel their tremor through its metal. Snot and tears are soaking through his collar onto his skin.

“I'm scared, Charlie, real fuckin' scared. Don't ya leave me, too.”

“I'm sorry, Pickles.” He squeezes the man's shoulders tight. “You're right. I, ah. I know you better than that. It won't happen again.”

“Are ya scared of me, too?”

He sighs. “Yes. Nothing I can't work past. Who else is afraid of you?”

A thick swallow. “Me.”

Charles presses his cheek to the top of Pickles' head, sheltering as much of him with his own body as he can.

“Scared shitless. Ya saw what I did. And I... I seen right through ya, dood. Didn't mean to. It just...”

“And?”

“Yer everything I fell in love with back in LA. Shit with that Melmord guy ya pulled was kinda fucked up, though.”

They remain curled together until Pickles' animal trembling abates and his sobs transform into the kind of hiccups that always make Charles smile with their unwieldy noise. Carefully he unfolds himself enough to tilt the other man's chin so they're looking eye to eye.

“Pickles, look at me.”

“Kinda hard not to, chief.”

“No. Look at me.”

A tremor wracks the body in his arms, throat bobbing as Pickles swallows hard. “Okay.”

Between his eyebrows and the first of his combed over dreads a red seam splits open. A thin trickle of blood slides down his nose unseen in the shifting ethereal glow of his third eye. Charles feels every part of him being turned, twisted until nothing is unseen. The terror of being watched crawls up his throat and he fears falling into the darkness of that eternal pupil as surely as he'd feared the unknown when he was a child. Urine soaks one trouser leg under his robes. Memories whirl through his mind as if sifted by a clumsy hand, flaring and dimming before he can clearly grasp them. Blood under his fingernails, puking in his roommate's laundry basket on the morning of his first hangover, the sound of his glasses cracking under an immense fist, a pen signing his name to paper.

Suddenly he is in LA surrounded by the stink of sweat and drugs, the scream of a crowd. Lights dazzle, a guitar screams and drums hammer out the beat of his heart. A howl splits the smoke fogged air and his throat seizes with anticipation. Between one breath and the next the men on stage are illuminated and he sees Pickles in person for the first time. Red hair swaying like flame, shirt torn, belly exposed and undulating with the motion of his hips in skintight pants, mouth open in a joyous scream. Charles screams with him, with the crowd, and the universe roars around them all.

A palm clumsily smears the tears on his cheek. “Sahrry.”

Charles clears his throat. “Well?”

“Yer the last good thing I got, chief, and yer pretty fuckin' great.”

“Thank you.”

“Ya gonna stay with me?”

“Don't you know?” he hugs Pickles tighter.

“Kinda need to hear it, ya know?”

“Then yes. Of course.” He presses his lips to the hidden eye, smearing blood over his mouth. “Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> I yell about this show and sometimes post art at [metalrat](http://metalrat.tumblr.com).


End file.
